You’ll forgive new gardeners for falling under the springtime spell of thinking any exotic plant will grow in prairie soil. “When people see something special growing out east or down south, they often come back to Calgary wanting to push the limits in their garden,” says Pat Fedkenheuer of ALCLA Native Plant Restoration. Alas, when it comes to palm trees and Zone 2, never the twain shall meet. And who needs high-maintenance tropical plants when you can have hardy and beautiful Alberta wildflowers? Here are five of Pat’s favourites.

1.Three-Flowered Aven

“These plants bloom right after the crocuses. They start with a beautiful deep-green leaf, then the bloom is a pink nodding head. It’s just a delightful prairie plant that, to me, looks like it should have a nursery rhyme written about it. After it blooms, the seed heads have feathery whiskers—the early settlers referred to fields of them as ‘prairie smoke.’”

2.Wild Bluebells

“Bluebells have captured the hearts of poets. They get a bad rap here because people associate them with weeds, but those are the heavier-stalked ones that the Europeans brought over. The native bluebell is beautiful, more fragile and dainty- looking but still sturdy—it’ll grow in partial shade and full sun.”

3. Gaillardia

“Oh my gosh, I just think of this as the happiest of flowers. They bloom in July and they attract the butterflies and bees—you can just hear the bees working when you’ve got gallardia in your yard. Even the seed heads are lovely, and the goldfinch in particular loves their seeds.”

4.Wild Blue Flax

“Now, what I love about this one is that when you come out in the morning, you’ll see the pretty blue petals of the blooms from the day before all over the ground, but, as the sun warms the plant, the new blooms come out. That’s what attracts me to this plant. They’re beautiful, like the blue brightness of the prairie sky.”

5. Shooting Stars

”This is such an appropriately named brilliant magenta flower. It looks like such a little plant when you put it in the ground, but it sends up more stalks every year. It’s so stunning it just draws you in. After it sets seed, it dies back and almost disappears so you have to be careful that you don’t dig it up when you weed; you’ve got to remember where you planted it. I saw a whole field of shooting stars once; it just took my breath away.”

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